Traditionally, mirrors were used within and/or upon a vehicle to provide images of objects and/or of a portion of the ambient vehicular environment located behind the driver and the passengers of the vehicle (i.e., disposed toward the “rear” of the vehicle). While these mirrors allowed the vehicle occupants to view certain objects and/or portions of the environment in which the vehicle resided, these mirrors did not substantially allow for the acquisition and the display of images of objects and/or of the ambient vehicular environment located and/or disposed along the front of the vehicle or toward and/or along the frontal side portions of the vehicle.
Attempts have been made to provide images of areas and/or objects located towards the front of the vehicle and areas and/or objects located toward the rear of the vehicle by the use of four cameras. Particularly, in this configuration, a first pair of cameras were mounted on a first side of the vehicle and were “pointed” or positioned to respectively provide frontal and rearward images along this first vehicular side. A second pair of cameras were mounted upon a second side of the vehicle and were “pointed” or positioned to respectively provide frontal and rearward images along this second vehicular side.
While these cameras adequately acquired and provided the desired images, they were and remain relatively expensive. Moreover, the use of four such cameras in the foregoing manner undesirably complicated the overall vehicular image acquisition and display process, thereby increasing the likelihood of failure and/or undesired malfunction.
There is therefore a need for a new and improved vehicular image acquisition and display system which overcomes at least some of the previously delineated drawbacks of prior systems.